Eternal Dawn

by Kerrion, Jade;

  “Motherhood is a fuzzy concept for an icrathari who has never contemplated it even once in four thousand years. She may prove maternal when the child is born, but frankly, I wouldn’t put any money on it. Well?” Talon leaned forward. “Are you in?”

  “Tonight?”

  Talon nodded. “Siri’s installing solar panels on the dome. They absorb the sun’s heat, transforming it into energy to power the city’s engines. Aeternae Noctis is no longer bound to its battery-stocked route, and as soon as the panels are installed, she’s directing the city north, to look for palladium deposits.”

  What’s palladium? Rafael frowned. “I wouldn’t be any good in a fight.”

  “If we wanted someone good in a fight, we’d have invited Yuri.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “Of course not. She’s Tera’s second-in-command. She’d feel obligated to tell Tera, and then Tera would tell Ashra, and then Ashra would probably find an excuse to lock us in the basement of the city.”

  “Does Siri know?”

  “Of course not. She doesn’t throw her weight around the way Ashra does, but I’m sure she would find a way to keep you from coming along on some mistaken belief that it might be too dangerous.”

  “Isn’t it?” Rafael asked drily. He pushed to his feet and walked to the fireplace to stir the coals.

  “What else do you have to do with your time? I know your research with those two herbs didn’t pan out. Don’t you want to find a cure for Siri? You care for her, don’t you?”

  Rafael winced, grateful that his back was to Talon.

  Talon continued, his tone casual. “You know, one of the benefits of being an elder vampire is that I can hear changes in heart rate. Yours sped all the way up at the mention of her name. So, are you just infatuated with her or do you love her?”

  Rafael sucked in a deep breath. Love?

  He was fascinated by Siri, and he admired her. He even considered her a friend, but love—love was an impossibility. He was human, and she was icrathari.

  But Jaden had been human too, and somehow, he and Ashra had managed to make it work.

  “Hmm,” Talon said, like a doctor diagnosing an illness. “You’re way past an infatuation.”

  Rafael stood and turned to face Talon. “That’s a low blow.”

  Talon shrugged. “You know us elder vampires. We’re merciless and deadly predators in more ways than one. Conniving and manipulative. You coming?”

  If it meant finding a cure for Siri— “Yes, of course.”

  “Great. Jaden’s engineering our escape.”

  “How?”

  Talon shook his head. “Don’t ask. Plausible deniability may keep Ashra from killing you after she stakes us. Jaden will meet us at the exit. Let’s go. We need to get out of the city while it’s night.”

  Rafael shoved gloves, empty jars, and a pair of tongs into his knapsack. He also tossed salves and a selection of fresh herbs, including lantana and yarrow leaves into his bag, before wrapping his heaviest cloak around his shoulders. “All right, I’m ready.”

  Talon led him through the quiet city and into the depths of Malum Turris, past the massive engine rooms that kept the city afloat and moving through the night. Jaden stepped out of the shadows as Talon and Rafael approached the far eastern edge of the basement. Jaden offered Rafael a smile. “I’m glad you’re here. Let’s go.”

  He pulled down on a lever. Panels in the floor yawned apart, and gusts of hot air rushed into the tower.

  “Talon, take him down,” Jaden ordered. “I’ll come after you.”

  Talon nodded, seized Rafael around the waist, and leapt through the open panel.

  Rafael squeezed his eyes shut as his stomach rushed up into his throat. Talon soundlessly landed on his feet, the joint impact scarcely rattling through Rafael.

  Rafael’s eyes flashed open. Moonlight washed over the surface of the earth. He stared up at the underside of the city, the smooth surface pockmarked with circular repulse engines, each billowing gusts of hot air and carrying the city a hundred feet above the blackened ground.

  Moments later, Jaden joined them, his double swords strapped to his back. A warrior, Jaden exercised a natural authority and easy influence over the Night Terrors, with the possible exception of Ashra. The icrathari queen, Rafael suspected, had not had a great deal of experience in taking orders, and was unlikely to be open to the idea of ever doing so.

  “This way,” Jaden said.

  Talon spared a final glance up at the city. “Do you think we made a clean getaway?”

  “Of course.” Jaden looked over his shoulder. “But just in case we didn’t, we should make a run for it before one of the winged furies finds out.”

  What had just happened?

  Siri leaned forward and ran her fingers lightly over a control panel on the supercomputer. For a brief span of five seconds, the screens had frozen. She realized it only because she had been staring at the engine compression numbers and the data had not changed as it should have.

  A quick diagnostic confirmed that a computer worm had infected the supercomputer. It was a benign worm, whose only purpose, as far as she could tell, was to lock up the supercomputer for five seconds. It was, however, no match for her ability to reverse engineer the damage it had inflicted.

  The reports trickled back in. Nothing particularly remarkable had happened during those five seconds, except that the carbon steel exit had opened.

  Her jaw dropped. Her fingers raced over the control panel, pulling the recording from the security camera that monitored the exit. The gray screen resolved into clear images. Jaden, Talon, and Rafael?

  Rafael did not seem to be struggling to get away. Talon had jumped out, taking Rafael with him. Jaden yanked the lever to close the panel, and then he too leapt through the shrinking space.

  With a slither of bone against flesh, Siri’s claws elongated in an instinctive response to stress.

  Talon and Jaden had not just sneaked out of the tower without permission. They had sabotaged her supercomputer—Jaden, most likely; Rohkeus’s genius had apparently not entirely been lost when his soul was reborn—and they had somehow coerced Rafael into accompanying them.

  Siri had no doubts as to where they were headed.

  She activated the external monitors. In spite of the darkness, the cameras picked up the two elder vampires and their human companion moving quickly across the rocks toward a cluster of stones on a dry riverbed—the one known entrance to the daeva caverns.

  Her mind choked on a tangle of curse words. None was adequate to describe the fluttering panic lodged in her chest. If Jaden and Talon wanted to get themselves killed taking on thousands of daevas, it was their choice, but they had no right to drag Rafael into the madness.

  Siri’s wings pressed against her back as she dove down the tower. She was racing for the exit even before her feet fully touched the floor.

  She would bring those three rogues back to Aeternae Noctis. Ashra could deal with the two rebellious elder vampires. And as for Rafael, he would be lucky if she did not break his fool neck for allowing himself to be dragged into escapades even immortals would be lucky to survive.

  Chapter 10

  For most of his life, Rafael believed the world outside the dome was a paradise of lush forests, vast meadows, and waterfalls cascading from mountaintops. When the daevas attacked, however, the humans learned that paradise was simply an image projected from Malum Turris, an illusion engineered to keep hope alive within a captive population.

  The daeva attack shattered the great lie of Aeternae Noctis. The humans lost the stunning view when they gained the truth.

  From within the dome, the outside world looked barren and desolate, its landscape scorched daily by the relentless rays of the sun. Even so, the external world was more of a hell than Rafael had realized. The Earth was a trash heap of inorganic matter. What looked like hillocks from the distance were remnants of concrete buildings, decayed by time. Debris took on the shape of metal husks.
Rafael pulled his cloak tightly around his shoulders as he braced against the icy fingers of the howling wind.

  “The earth burns by day and freezes by night,” Jaden said. “The atmosphere is too badly wrecked to regulate temperatures.”

  “Good thing vampires are immune to the cold.” Talon flashed Rafael a wicked grin. “You should consider it.”

  “Consider what?”

  “Transforming. The benefits far outweigh the negatives.”

  Rafael laughed. “I did not expect a sales pitch on vampirism.”

  “I’d recommend elder vampirism in spite of its higher risks,” Jaden said.

  “I’m not interested in living forever, but just out of curiosity, what’s the difference?”

  “Elder vampires are the firstborn of the icrathari, transformed by a transfusion of pure icrathari blood. Vampires, on the other hand, are created from a blend of icrathari and vampire blood. The purity of the icrathari blood is diluted in vampires, making the change much more likely to be successful.”

  “I didn’t realize transformations could fail.”

  “The likelihood increases the higher the percentage of icrathari blood.”

  “And what happens when it fails?”

  “Insanity,” Talon intoned.

  “I could make a case that the two elder vampires I know are insane.”

  Talon roared with laughter. “You really have no fear of us. It’s good to find a human being with whom I can have a normal conversation. Most of them are too petrified to speak to me. Anyway, most elder vampire transformations fail. The process calls for the burial of the elder vampire outside the city. If he survives, he will have the wits to return to the city. If not, the immortali—the insane elder vampire—dies from eventual exposure to the sun.”

  “Usually,” Jaden added.

  “Usually?” Rafael asked.

  “Sometimes, they’re smart enough to take cover during the day, in which case, they can live almost indefinitely out here unless they’re injured. Vampires and icrathari don’t need blood as food; we need it only to heal. I’ve run into two immortali during my scouting expeditions.”

  “Really? What did you do?”

  “We killed them,” Jaden said. His tone was matter-of-fact. “They hunt and slaughter vampires. Unless an icrathari or an elder vampire accompanies the vampires, the vampires stand no chance against the immortali. Even with an elder vampire, it can be something of a close call.”

  “Got your ass handed to you, didn’t you?” Talon mocked.

  “Very nearly did,” Jaden said. He flashed Rafael a grin. “The other benefit of vampirism is accelerated healing. We rarely have to live with the physical evidence of the fights that don’t go our way.” He hunkered close to the ground as he approached a cluster of rocks shaped like a building. “The entrance is in there.” He glanced at Rafael. “Your last chance to back out.”

  Rafael shrugged. “Not backing out.”

  The small stone building was empty. Jaden knelt, his fingers scraping on the pebbled ground. Within moments, he found a trapdoor. He tugged it open and peered down into the darkness. He drew his twin swords from the sheath he wore across his back and leapt, feet first, into the cavern. Talon grabbed Rafael around the waist and followed.

  They landed on their feet. Several moments passed before Rafael’s eyes adjusted to the darkness. The pitch black resolved into the crude outline of limestone tunnels that ran in both directions. Neither tunnel had any distinguishing features.

  Rafael ground his teeth. “Getting lost in here would be the easiest thing in the world.”

  “Not part of the plan,” Jaden assured him. “This way. And if we run into trouble, stay between Talon and me.”

  “How good are your senses?” Rafael asked.

  “Perfect.”

  “You’ll be able to follow a scent trail, then.” Rafael grabbed a handful of lantana leaves from his knapsack and brushed them against the left cave wall.

  Talon sniffed. “Citrusy.”

  Rafael nodded. Even a human could smell them. “I’ll leave a trail we can all follow. Might as well make myself useful, since I’m no good in a fight.”

  He shadowed Jaden, and Talon followed him. The elder vampires moved silently, and Rafael did his best to minimize the sound he made. Even so, his footsteps seemed much too loud although there did not appear to be anyone around to listen to the noise.

  “Where is everyone?” Talon demanded in a whisper.

  Jaden shook his head. “I don’t know.” He, too, sounded disappointed.

  Rafael stifled a sigh. Just his luck. He had fallen in with two elder vampires spoiling for a fight.

  “They may have abandoned these caverns. They would have known we would come back sooner or later,” Jaden continued.

  “Leaving the caves to travel someplace else would be tricky in daylight,” Talon said. “I bet these caves connect to others. We just have to map it out.”

  “Wait.” Rafael held up his hand for silence. “Do you hear that?”

  Jaden tilted his head and frowned. “Running water.” He followed the quiet sound through the winding tunnels to a small pool of water tucked behind a large cluster of stalactites and stalagmites. A trickle of water from an underground river dripped into the pond, which sparkled blue with bioluminescent plankton. Jaden scooped a handful of water and took a sip. “It’s brackish.”

  “Probably from the high mineral content in the ground,” Rafael said. “But it’s good enough for some plants. Look.” He slid the lantana leaves into his pocket before kneeling to examine several spindly plants that matched drawings in his book on herbal remedies. “This is a poria mushroom and this…” He sucked in a breath. “I’m not certain, but it could be a reishi mushroom.”

  “Is that good? That’s not one of the herbs you’re looking for, is it?”

  “No, but the reishi mushroom is supposed to be one of the most amazing herbal substances; it’s believed to be an anti-aging herb, and it stimulates and modulates the immune system. I’ve never had any personal experience with it—we’ve never had it in Aeternae Noctis—but I have to get a sample of it, and of the other plants here.”

  Jaden glanced around the lake. “I don’t see too many plants.”

  “There are more than you think,” Rafael said. “The light is dim, and it’s hard to tell the plants apart without close study.”

  “How long will it take you to gather your samples?” Jaden asked.

  Rafael swept his gaze across the breadth of the large cavern. “A good while. I’ll work as fast as I can.”

  “All right. I’ll scout ahead. Talon, you stay here with Rafael.”

  Talon scowled at Jaden. “You realize, of course, that I obey your orders only because you created me.”

  Rafael looked at Talon. “What?” How many undercurrents anchored those complex relationships among the Night Terrors?

  “Rohkeus transformed me into an elder vampire a thousand years ago.”

  “Rohkeus. The icrathari prince?”

  “You know the story? It’s not common knowledge among humans.”

  “Siri told me he created the city. She also said he was assassinated.”

  Talon grinned. “He was. His soul, however, was reborn.”

  Rafael’s stunned gaze flicked to Jaden. “In you?”

  Jaden shrugged. “It’s not something we share with the people in the city. It’s important for them to see me as human, or at least formerly human. The situation is strained enough. No need to complicate it with technicalities.”

  “A reincarnated icrathari isn’t a technicality.”

  A muscle twitched in Jaden’s smooth cheek. “I’m human, or at least, I was human. My soul once belonged to someone who had loved Ashra a long time ago. That it resided in the body of an icrathari is irrelevant.”

  “Is it?” Rafael asked.

  “An icrathari has one head, two arms, and two legs. How is that any different from a human?”

  Rafael’s eyeb
rows shot up. “Bat wings? Unnatural strength? Immortality?”

  “The differences matter only if you let them matter.”

  “Closing your eyes, your mind, and your heart to them does not make them go away.”

  Talon stepped between them. “Take it easy on him,” he told Jaden. “Rafael’s trying hard not to fall in love with Siri.”

  Jaden’s jaw dropped. “Siri?” He suddenly chuckled, his subtly defensive edge giving way to camaraderie. “Good luck.”

  A puzzled frown furrowed Rafael’s brow.

  “It’s going to feel wrong before it feels right,” Jaden said.

  Rafael shook his head. “Siri and I are working together on a cure for aconite poisoning. That’s all.”

  “A common cause will take you further than you know.”

  “Not nearly far enough,” Rafael murmured.

  Talon snorted. “If you two ladies are done gossiping about your love lives, you’ll take pity on me and shut up, since I have none.”

  Jaden grinned. “Is Yuri not falling head-over-heels for your abundant charm?”

  “Shut up, Mr. Destined Lover.” Talon kicked at a pile of dirt. “You and Ashra didn’t have to really work for eternal happiness.”

  “We work for it. Every single day,” Jaden said coolly. “I’m scouting ahead. Talon, you stay here with Rafael.”

  Rafael carefully dug up the plants by the root and inserted them into empty jars, together with soil and water samples. Talon paced the length of the cavern. “Are you done?” he demanded every five minutes.

  “No, and the more often you ask, the longer it will take.”

  Talon huffed and continued his restless pacing.

  Rafael stifled a chuckle.

  “I heard that,” Talon growled.

  “What?”

  “The change in your heart rate. You’re laughing at me.”

  “You elder vampires provide such great fodder for laughter. It must be your melodramatic nature.”

  Talon looked up sharply in the direction they had come from. “What was that? Did you hear that?”

  Rafael’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t hear anything.”